The poem strikes a continual contrast between light and dark, like the natural, naked whiteness of Tom's hair, and the boy's bodies in heaven, "naked and white," with all of the unnecessary baggage of their labor "left behind."
The poem also contrasts the ease of "sporting in the wind" rather than going into the pits of hellish, dark hot chimneys that is won if the boys are good and do their duty. But this dream is a hope easily accepted and swallowed by children, yet paradise and its reward seems ironically bestowed, unrealistic in its contrast with reality, and ultimately the poet does not seem as confident as the speaker that "Tom, if he'd be a good boy, / He'd have God for his father, and never want joy...and "if all do their duty they need not fear harm." The boys have no comfort other than the hope, perhaps false hope of heaven, just like they are supposed to take comfort having their light, fine childhood hair cut off so they can better labor in the darkness, for other's comfort and warmth, as they work in the cold.
The reference to God as a father and duty sound like cliches, and the word choice seems deliberate to illustrate the false lies these children are told, to comfort them as they have experienced miserable loss of childhood. They are too innocent to really understand the harm that has been done to them, and the simplicity of the language, the fact that these children are sold before they can barely speak, much less be educated in injustice, makes the entire poem deeply ironic, despite its superficially...
The fact that the unnamed narrator, who could not have been more than five or six years old, shows a young boy's chilling resignation to his fate. These passages therefore show how thoroughly social conventions can "brainwash" society members, especially those who experience the most brutal oppression. This acquiescence to social convention is seen most clearly in Tom Dacre's dream. The ideal of a boy playing and running shows by contrast
Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper "s Romanticism was an intellectual, literary, and artistic movement that took place during the second half of the eighteenth century. William Blake, an English poet, painter, and printmaker, explores opposing views in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, his collection of poems that juxtaposes what he considers to be innocent perspectives against the perspectives of those who have been exposed to the cruelties of life.
The boys can only achieve freedom in their dreams, because the reality of their situation is so hopeless. Dunn's boy worker works hard, but he is not consumed by his work, and he knows it is not a permanent, horrible situation. Dunn's poem, on the other hand, shows another dark side of work. His narrator is a boy old enough to work in a factory, but still young enough to
This job also gave him nightmares ("That thousands of sweepers... were all locked up in coffins of black") which shows that being a chimney sweep caused him much personal pain and distress. In Dunn's poem "Hard Work," we find a similar young boy who envies his friends away at camp while he labors in the Coke factory. Two key lines in this poem show how difficult it is for
The fear and the misery cannot be escaped. The image here is of a town brimming with people and yet they are alienated and oppressed. One of the most powerful literary techniques Blake employs in the poem is irony. In the beginning of the poem, after Blake introduces the notion of misery, he follows it with the notion of freedom. Those in the city are no doubt free but they
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker whose works continue to influence readers today. His collection of illuminated poems contained in one of his most well-known works, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, provide opposing views in this set of poems, Blake helps to expose what he thought was innocent and how experience changes these view. In "The Chimney Sweeper," a poem contained in both Songs of
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